Don't argue with me. If you let me talk you'll have a confession. You can make notes if you like and I'll sign the statement. It'll save time.'
De Gier didn't say anything.
'I was content, in a way. I didn't like The Hague. It reminded me of a cemetery, full of shadows. In Amsterdam I began to live again. People talk to each other here, even in the street, and there are a lot of Negroes in Amsterdam. I stopped feeling black. People thought I came from the colonies in South America, I didn't have to explain myself. And it got even better when I met Piet Verboom. The people of the Hindist Society accepted me.
'Yes,' Grijpstra said, 'Verboom. Tell us about your relationship with him.'
'What do you think our relationship was?' van Meteren asked.
'Drugs.' Grijpstra said. 'You both dealt in drugs.'
Van Meteren smiled.
'I wasn't a dealer,' he said. 'I was a bodyguard. Piet had convinced himself he wasn't a mere drug dealer. He had combined it with mysticism. Meditation and self-discipline were part of his ideas, but the whole process should be combined with drugs. Drugs accelerate the opening up of the mind. He kept on telling me that drugs were part of our evolution. And drugs, like mysticism, come from the Far East. It all sounded very logical when you listened to him. But drugs are dangerous, mere are a lot of criminals in the trade. He felt safer when I was around.'
'And you kept your job as a traffic warden?'
'Of course,' van Meteren said. 'It gave me something to do during the day. A traffic warden is a respectable person. Piet's activities were always limited to the evenings and the weekends.'
Van Meteren was speaking very slowly now. The pill had begun to work. De Gier lit a cigarette and gave it to him. It was very quiet on the lake, the rhythmical muffled explosions of the diesel engine created a peaceful atmosphere. Runau had relaxed, and was steering the hotter as he listened. A covey of waterfowl almost touched the mast with their wings. The coasdine had become visible.
'Not a bad life, eh?' van Meteren asked. 'I have spent days in the boat like this, during the weekends mostly. I have always felt very good on the water, doing nothing in particular, watching the birds and the clouds and fishing a bit, maybe.'
Grijpstra had stretched out on a bench, de Gier was sitting on the floor next to van Meteren, he was scribbling in his notebook.
'How's the yacht?' van Meteren asked Runau.
'All right. The cleaning rags have done the trick. She isn't leaking anymore and I have hosed most of the water out.'
'I am really sorry,' van Meteren said. 'I hope I haven't ruined her.'
'Don't worry,' Runau said. 'I came of my own free will. I knew something might happen.'
'Go on,' de Gier said.
Van Meteren smiled. 'You want to know it all, hey? You'll get it all, all you need is a little patience.'
'How do you feel now?' Grijpstra asked.
'Better. That pill must have been very strong. But let me tell you the rest of it. Piet had made a few long trips. He had been to Pakistan and he had been offered hash. Piet was a good businessman. He made a plan, got the stuff into the country and kept it for a while. He didn't want to run too much of a risk and preferred selling to a wholesaler than directly to the consumer.'
'I thought he was an idealist,' de Gier said.
'He was, in a way. I am sure he believed what he preached, or perhaps it was the other way around, he wanted to make a lot of money so he thought of a high-minded theory to fit his facts.'
'So you hung him,' de Gier said.
The Papaun's eyes fixed de Gier's.
'Yes. So I hung him. The hash was all right. I have smoked it myself. Often. Here on the lake, for instance. I don't think it does any harm. I made the contact with Beuzekom. I found him by chance. He had parked his little Mercedes bus on a sidewalk and I gave him a ticket and noticed that he had a lot of tins in the car. Ringma was with him and became very nervous when I asked about the tins. I opened one of them and they offered to bribe me but I made an appointment instead and introduced them to Piet. Piet's stuff was better and cheaper than what they had been buying so far. They bought everything Piet had to offer and asked for more. They paid cash as well.'
'How much?' de Gier asked.
'A lot,' van Meteren said. 'Beuzekom is the most important hash dealer in Amsterdam. And he is hard to catch. He has been caught once but the man who gave his name to the police has disappeared.'
'Who financed Piet's business?' Grijpstra asked.
'Joachim de Kater. Piet had no money, not much anyway. Short-term loans at very high interest. I was always around when there was money in the house, money or drugs. I would report sick at work or take a day off. Usually we could organize it all in one day.'
'How much were you making yourself?'
'Not as much as you would think,' van Meteren said, 'about fifty thousand a year, maybe, and free board and lodging. And that was more than Piet had intended. I made him pay me. He was frightened of me. And he needed me, of course. He wouldn't go anywhere without me. I spent the money on the motorbike and on this boat and I intended to save a hundred thousand. Take it to New Guinea with me.'
'With a Dutch passport?'
Van Meteren laughed.
'I may be a clown here but in New Guinea it would have been different, it is a very big island and I know it well. I would have found a nice spot and I had made some plans. Wild plans. I might have become a pirate, an admiral with thirty or forty canoes under me, each canoe with a crew of thirty cutthroats. I could have been a king.'
'King Doodle the First,' de Gier said. 'But why did you read all that Dutch history?'
'Curiosity,' van Meteren said. 'I lived here and I wanted to know where I lived. I read about your tribal wars and about the Romans, and the Spanish, and the French, and the Germans. Your history isn't all that different from ours. Our wars are still tribal but there is only a difference in scale. I have been studying your methods.'
'And what did Piet make out of it?' Grijpstra asked.
'More than I did. But he was spending a lot. He was eating in expensive restaurants and spending money in the red quarter. And some of it went into the house at the Haarlemmer Houttuinen. The Society was making some money, but not enough for all the building going on. A new roof alone cost him fifty thousand.'
'And Joachim de Kater kept on lending money?'
'Sure. He was making a fortune without lifting a finger. He took the risk that Piet wouldn't repay the loan but he always insisted on guarantees and Piet was using the house as security, and that other house he owned in the south.'
'Did Piet have anybody else working for him?'
'No,' van Meteren said. 'I was his only assistant. He didn't believe in having a lot of people working for him. The Hindist Society was also run with the absolute minimum in manpower. He was a good merchant, he didn't believe in spending his profit on wages. He also didn't believe in sharing his secrets.'
The Papuan groaned. Grijpstra sat up and climbed onto the small roof of the cabin. A thin ragged fog seemed to protect the hotter.
'Beautiful,' Grijpstra thought. 'A pleasure trip. Perhaps I should hire a boat and take the children for a day on the lake.'
He sighed and climbed down into the cabin again.
The Papuan had closed his eyes but opened them again when he heard Grijpstra come in.
'It was, in a way, a pleasant, easy business,' he said. 'Beuzekom was a dangerous man perhaps but he knew I carried a revolver and he was always very polite. When the casks had to be handed over I made him and Ringma do all the carrying. I watched them, and that was all. Piet liked that. 'You are my nice sweet Papuan' he would say. He also used to call me his 'pet tiger.''
'But you killed him,' de Gier said.
'Yes,' van Meteren said. 'I waited for the right moment. I had to kill him, but it had to be a good kill.'
